Drowning Lessons
by Qzil
Summary: Meg's life as a demon begins and ends with a river. /Or, Meg is the demon chosen to birth the child that will be Lucifer's right hand in the apocalypse.


Super AU with screwy as hell timelines. Special thanks to rashaka for putting up with my many late night 'but why would Meg _keep _a baby?' asks.

* * *

It starts with a river.

A human girl slips from her bed and dresses quietly so she does not wake her husband and leaves the house, walking with determination for the river that cuts a path through the woods. Rocks weigh down her dress as she wades in, the water getting higher and higher until it swallows her whole and drags her under.

.

She opens her eyes on a rack in Hell, river water spilling from her mouth as she screams in the heat and struggles against the ropes holding her down. A demon enters the room, so large he flows from one end of the stone chamber to the other and she cannot see the end of him. A thousand mouths bloom on his body as he laughs and hisses and a tendril of smoke flows forward to touch her forehead.

"What you did was a sin," he whispers. "Now you get to pay for it." The rocks in the pockets of her dress feel heavier and keep her body pinned as his mouths crawl over her skin and tear chunks of flesh and fabric from her.

Meg throws her head back and screams at the smoke-covered celling.

.

The demon comes every morning and cuts her open, sometimes in a humanoid shape and sometimes as a sprawling cloud of smoke. She learns to take the pain of being cut into and having her flesh torn from her body as he takes her apart and puts her back together over and over and over again.

Meg doesn't know how long she lays on the rack before the demon waves a hand and the ropes fall away. She jumps and tries to run, managing to grab the swinging metal door before the demon overpowers her and drags her down the hallway while she screams, broken fingernails scrabbling at the stone under her.

"Doesn't this look familiar?" he asks, forcing Meg to her knees beside a boiling lake. The bones that make up the shoreline dig into her knees and feet as he forces her down. "Knives aren't working anymore, I'm afraid, so it's time to try some less conventional methods."

She doesn't get a chance to ask what the demon means before he forces her head under the water, one hand fisted in her hair. It eats through her skin and rushes into her lungs as she tries to scream and fight against the familiar pain that landed her in Hell.

He pulls her head back out for half a moment before shoving it back into the boiling water, blisters bubbling on her skin and her hands as he forces more and more of her body under.

"What do you remember?" he asks when he lifts her. "What do you remember from your human life?"

He dunks her again and again until the memories of children and a husband and a human life fade from her mind. Her tongue boils in her mouth and regrows as heat fills her lungs and the false sun rises and sets over the beach of bones. The water peels away her skin and hair until she cannot remember anything, even her human name.

"What do you remember from your human life?" he asks again years later, holding her by the torn, burned flesh of her neck.

"Nothing," she gasps, struggling against his touch. "Nothing."

The demon smiles and tenderly cups her cheek. "Perfect. Now, child, you can be remade."

"Into what?" she asks, leaning into only gentle touch she can now remember.

"My daughter."

.

She learns that his name is Azazel and that he rules over Hell, that he had taken a special interest in her when she refused to break on the rack. He brings her from torture chamber to torture chamber and puts knives in her hands and tells her what to do. Human souls pass under her knife begging and pleading for mercy and she learns to love the blood and screams.

When she breaks her first human and they begin to change, Azazel kisses her forehead and tells her he is proud of her. She feels herself changing and growing under his tutelage until she no longer resembles a human soul, her true form swelling as pride at her father's words fill her.

.

There are few things that she is not allowed.

She has no name but she is Azazel's child, practically royalty in Hell. Her father gives her free reign to go anywhere she wishes, except for the river. When Meg questions why, Azazel takes her gently by the hand and tells her to look over the short drop that leads to the water.

It glows green in the dim light of Hell and moves so fast she can barely see the outline of souls. Hundreds of the damned crawl over each other in the current, reaching up to try to grab her hand and drag her under.

"This is the worst thing Hell has," Azazel says softly. "This is death for the dead. You fall in this, my dear, and you will not come out. For the human souls it is nothing but the worst pain for eternity, but for us it is oblivion. It will cleanse you like only an angel blade can cleanse a demon."

"It's beautiful," she whispers, stretching out her other hand to almost touch the water.

Azazel squeezes her hand so hard the fragile bones snap. "Do not go near it, daughter. I have big plans for you. It would be a shame to end them before they began."

.

Meg goes near it anyway.

She never feared death or fatherly rage when she was a human and her demonic self carries that trait, one of the few bits of her humanity that she maintains. Meg runs to the river whenever she can, stares down at the green glow and the twisted souls that reach for her and climb over one another, trying to escape.

She teeters on the edge of the bank and nearly falls, yanking herself back from death at the last second again and again until it feels like her very essence is flying from the rush of nearly dying. Eventually, she graduates to climbing the large, dead tree that stretches over the riverbank, hauls herself to the very top until she can see for miles and the green glow under her is the only point of light.

She comes to the river one morning to find that Hell has changed it for her. A swing hangs from a branch that thrusts itself over the river, black and dead and made of thorns. She climbs on to it without a second thought and ignores the way it tears at her body and creaks under her weight as she pumps her legs to move.

Meg swings out over the river and laughs when the souls of the damned leap out like fish and try to catch her toes. She soars higher and higher over the water until it feels like she is flying, leans back in the swing so the ground rushes up to meet her and makes her stomach jump.

She smiles and laughs and knows that she is not afraid to fall.

.

"When do I get a name?" Her voice is quiet as the last question she will ever ask her father leaves her mouth.

"Soon," her father promises. "You name yourself. Only humans and angels have names assigned to them. We're better than them, daughter. Don't forget that."

"I won't."

"I know," he tells her. "You are truly special, child. We will do great things together."

.

Azazel takes her to an empty torture room and sits down on the rack. "Sit, daughter. Today begins your lessons."

She sits at his feet and learns about Lucifer and how he will rise. Every day in Hell brings a new piece of the story and she drinks it all in eagerly, devoting herself to Azazel's words.

"You will be with me when this happens," he explains. "You have a very special role to play in this. You won't disappoint me, will you?"

"No, father," she breathes.

.

Azazel is the one to lead her out of Hell and give her a mission. She takes a poor farm girl for her vessel and learns to move within the limitations of a human body in a world where the colors are too bright, the smells too sharp and the noises too loud after her time in Hell. She feels like a child again as she learns to speak with her mouth and not her mind and to channel her power through human flesh so she can manipulate the world around her. She sheds blood where her father tells her, takes poor girls and heiresses alike and does nothing but destroy.

With each vessel Azazel asks if she's found her name, and each time she answers that she hasn't, until she takes a college girl named Meg Masters. She squirms inside the girl's body, trying to get comfortable in flesh not meant to hold her, but keeps her name. It feels right, like it belongs to her, and her father tells her that it does if she wants it to.

"Your mission's changed, anyway," he tells her as she slides around inside the girl. "You need a different suit. A coma patient would work. Just make sure there's no other human soul inside of it. It needs to be all you."

She doesn't ask why, just does as her father orders and leaves for the local hospital. The girl screams in triumph when Meg leaves her body and hops into a dark-haired girl with brown eyes, her original spirit long gone.

Meg fits comfortably inside the skin she can now call her own and leaves the hospital without effort, no family coming to claim the Jane Doe who was almost dead. The body wraps around her true form like she was always meant to be there and her power flows through the flesh easier than in any other vessel.

The toothy smile Azazel gives her upon her return is the only proof she needs that she's done right by him. He kisses her new forehead and slides into a chair, motioning for her to sit as well. "It's perfect, Meg. Now, I have a very special assignment for you. There's nothing in this world you want more than for our father to rise, right?"

"Yes, father," she agrees, leaning forward to listen to his words.

"Good, because what I require of you will not be easy. Demons aren't meant to give life."

Her eyebrows draw together in confusion for a moment before Azazel explains his plan.

Meg learns that the angels are waiting for Lucifer to rise along with the demons, and that both sides have been willing to stay out of each other's way to ensure it happens until now.

"The apocalypse will start when a righteous man sheds blood in Hell," Azazel explains, folding his hands together and placing his elbows on his knees. "That is why we torture humans and make them into demons. Any one of them could be the righteous man. Lilith, the mother of all our kind, will rise and die in order for him to come to Earth. But right after her death something else miraculous must happen.

"It is written that the child of an angel and a demon will grow and stand at Lucifer's side during the apocalypse and be with him when he raises us all to Heaven. You, Meg, will have the honor of carrying that child."

"Me?"

"You had five children when you were human, and you were a midwife," he reminds her. "You are the most faithful of all my children, never questioning and following my every order. This is a great honor."

"Thank you, father."

He smiles at her. "We begin soon. They've already selected an angel to father the child. You will have forty-eight hours to conceive the boy, and after that I have a safe house for us until before the birth. Once he is born, the child will be raised as human for several years until his powers develop. Then, the real apocalypse will start."

When she does not challenge him or ask questions, Azazel stands and motions for her to follow. "You will be honored, daughter, and he will reward you beyond what you can imagine for bringing this miracle child into the world."

.

Azazel shuffles her from safe house to safe house, no longer allowing her out on assignments. She strolls through small villages and rural towns with her father's demons there to guard her and waits for something to happen.

Sitting in the middle of nowhere in Europe, she finds a baby book on the shelf and flips through it curiously, throwing her feet up on the corpse of the house's owner. Her nose wrinkles in disgust at the pictures of development and birth that flash across her vision.

"Humans are disgusting," she tells her father when he visits. She points at the picture in the book showing week six. "It looks like a shrimp."

.

Her father's demons tail her wherever she goes, staying just out of sight for protection. Meg ignores them and leaves her latest safe house to walk in the woods, tearing through the paths at superhuman speed and breathing in the clean air. She runs until she reaches a river that cuts through the forest and finds a deer drinking on the other side. She leaps across the river before the animal can bound away and sinks her teeth into its neck, ignoring the way it bucks and struggles under her as she tears at the tough flesh.

Meg stands when the animal sags under her, holding it up by the head and moaning at the fresh blood running down her chin and over her hands. She throws it to the side and watches as blood continues to lazily pump from its neck to stain the river, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand before she kneels at the riverbank to clean herself.

She pushes her head under the water and fights against her vessel's instinct to surface when her air runs out. Instead, she opens her mouth and lets the water rush in to sit heavy in her stolen lungs as the current whips her hair around. She spits the water back into the river when fuzzy images and sounds make their way into her head, babies and a man with dark hair and eyes sitting at a kitchen table.

Pulling her head out of the water, Meg coughs and tries to shake the fuzzy pictures from her mind.

She walks back into the house dripping wet and fighting the memories, freezing in the doorway when she spies Azazel sitting in the living room.

"It's time," he says, ignoring the water running from her body and the glazed look in her eyes. "The apocalypse begins tonight." Her father holds his hand out for hers and she takes it without question, turning away from the memories invading her mind and toward her mission.

.

It's not a ritual like she expects.

Meg always figured conceiving Lucifer's special child would involve something a bit more demon like, that maybe she'd be anointed with the blood of a virgin or there'd chanting or an altar. Instead, Azazel takes her to a motel room in the middle of nowhere, kisses her forehead, and tells her to have fun.

The angel arrives a minute after her father leaves, knocking politely on the door. Meg opens it half undressed with her pants unbuttoned and her bare feet sinking into the dirty motel carpet.

_At least the meatsuit's cute, _she thinks as she steps away from the door. It wouldn't do for the Anti-Christ to be ugly. She doesn't intend to talk to the angel that stares at her like a man with a rope around his neck, but her mouth opens without her permission. "Why'd they pick you?"

He shrugs. "My superiors told me to."

_They want this baby, but they don't want to stoop to fucking a demon, huh? _She shakes her head and kicks the door shut, watches the angel jump a little at the sound. "Let's just get it over with."

"I thought there would be more of a ritual," he confesses, looking away as she strips off the rest of her clothes.

"Guess it doesn't matter how it happens as long as it does," she answers, sitting on the bed and waiting for him. "Come on. We haven't got an eternity. This little abomination's on a timeline, remember?"

"I know," he says. "Let's just get this over with."

It takes all of five minutes for Meg to figure out that the angel has no idea what he's doing and flip them over, her fantasies of fucking a powerful, cosmic being melting away. He moans and twitches like any other human man under her touch as she moves, mechanical and bored and focused on the motel's ugly wallpaper. She treats it like any other distasteful assignment from her father: Get in and get it done as fast as she can so she can leave.

The angel takes over when her stamina finally drains, moving automatically and letting his vessel's memories guide him. She studies the water stains on the ceiling, lets her mind turn to Lucifer and her father and how she's ensuring their victory through coupling with the enemy, no matter who the angels think will win.

Meg pulls her clothes back on exactly forty-eight hours later and almost leaves without saying something to the angel. A nagging, human feeling in the back of her mind forces her to turn around with her shoes still dangling from her hands. She finds him praying with his eyes closed and his head bowed, hands locked together under his chin.

"Why bother?" she asks, hopping onto one foot to put her boots on. "It'll happen. It's written."

He doesn't try to explain. "I don't even know your name," he says instead. "You're the chosen mother of this special child, but they would not even tell me that."

"Meg." She zips up her boots and heads for the door, not asking his name in return.

"Mine is Castiel," he offers.

She snorts. "I really don't care. See you at the apocalypse."

.

Azazel smiles and touches her vessel's stomach when he sees her. "It's done, Meg. I can sense it."

"Good. That was horrible," she says, wrinkling her nose. Azazel's smile grows wider as he leads her to a car, claiming that demonic transportation will hurt the child just starting in her womb.

"You are blessed, daughter," he tells her as the demon driving the car moves onto the highway.

Meg rests her hand on her flat stomach and sighs. "I know."

.

Azazel takes her to a large, sprawling house surrounded by hills and filled with every luxury imaginable. He gives her guards to order around and lower-ranking demons to clean up after her and says that she can have anything she wants, for she is the most precious demon in the world. He slips into the reclusive millionaire who owns the house and disappears to do other work that will be needed to bring their father into the world while she waits and waits and waits for her belly to grow so she can jump back into the bloodshed.

She has to admit that the house is beautiful and infinitely preferable to squatting in Hell while she waits for the child to be born, even if she doesn't understand why it's so important that she suffers and gives birth to the thing topside. Azazel takes her face in his hands and tells her that she will understand in time and she believes him.

Meg drowns herself in everything the house and land has to offer, dives headfirst into all the luxury that money can buy and tries to stave off the boredom and bloodlust that creeps up on her every second she is trapped there. The rabbits and deer that come to nibble on the flowers in the back garden die squeaking and screaming under her hands, not quite sating her need to kill but keeping it at bay enough to keep her obedient to her father's wishes.

The lower ranking demons clean the house and pool and garden, disposing of the bones that litter the grass and picking up the clothes she scatters from the dead wife's wardrobe. Evening gowns and jewelry and fancy underwear the recluse could never throw away, all hers to keep or destroy because her father stole it for her, a reward for her faith and willingness to climb into bed with the enemy for the good of her kind.

.

Castiel appears just as her belly starts to swell, the bump strikingly obvious against her still-tiny frame as she lies by the pool in a black and white bikini pilfered from the dead wife's closet. Meg lowers her sunglasses when she sees him but doesn't move despite her instincts screaming at her to run. She knows the angels need the child growing in her as much as the demons do; knows that it keeps her safe if only for a few months.

"Didn't think I'd see you until after the runt came out," she says casually, sliding her sunglasses back into place and settling into the chair.

"I wanted to see." He focuses on the bump with no expression on his face. "I wasn't sure if it took."

"It took alright. I can't stop throwing up." She stretches, groaning in pleasure when her back cracks against the recliner. "At least I get to be pregnant in the lap of luxury this time. No pools or maids or giant bathtubs when you're a human peasant living on a farm."

When he doesn't answer Meg flings off the sunglasses and hops into the pool to wash the sweat from her skin, annoyed at the pregnancy for making her feel human weaknesses such as the heat and cold and the need to eat. She stays under the water until her vessel starts to struggle, surfacing just short of drowning the girl and ending the little life inside her.

"That is probably not good for the child," he comments, perching on the edge of another chair.

"I know how to be pregnant," she snaps, turning onto her back. She closes her eyes as she floats along in the kidney-shaped pool and sighs as the sunlight spills across her face. When Meg finally opens them again she finds Castiel staring at her, eyes still focused on the baby bump. "That staring thing is creepy."

"It is just amazing to think that the apocalypse is finally in motion, partly because of what we created," he says. "I wanted to see it before the battles start and I am forced to smite you."

"That's a wonderful thing to say to the mother of your child."

"It is the truth."

Meg climbs from the pool and walks back into the house, water running from her body to splash against the mosaic tile.

.

Azazel visits frequently, bringing prenatal vitamins and anything else she may need to keep the child healthy as it grows, despite her protests that she birthed all five of her human children fine and healthy without the aid of modern medicine. Her father goes as far as kidnapping a human nurse and appropriating equipment from a hospital, threatening the weeping woman with torture if she does not do her job. The woman examines her with tears still running down her face, pointing out the healthy baby.

"Would you like a picture?" she stammers, words coming from her mouth automatically. Azazel declines, but Meg nods quietly to the girl, amazed for the first time at what humanity can do. Two of her father's demons take the girl outside to give them privacy as Meg wipes the jelly from her body, the picture resting next to the machine.

"Why not just possess her?" she asks as she fixes her shirt back in place.

"We need her for something," Azazel answers. "She needs to be pure. Untainted." He pauses, glancing at the ultrasound picture. "Why do you want that?"

"Nice to know how big the thing is. Don't wanna get fatter than I have to in this meatsuit."

"You'll find another."

"I like this one. She's pretty. Besides, humans think it's weird if you don't keep this shit. Don't we have to raise him as a human for a few years?"

Azazel laughs just as the nurse begins to scream. "That's why you're my favorite, Meg. You're smart."

.

It turns out that there are rituals she has to follow.

There is no fancy dress or altar or chanting. Azazel simply stands before her in the yard, the nurse's blood congealing slowly in a small bowl at his feet. He coats his fingers in it and anoints her slightly swollen stomach, mumbling under his breath in Latin while she shivers at the sharp bite of the wind against her bare flesh. Once the proper symbols are drying on her skin, he brings the bowl to her lips and tilts it forward, raising his eyebrows in encouragement.

Meg drinks as fast as she can, gulping down the liquid until it runs down the corners of the mouth, almost able to taste the virgin in the girl it was from. Azazel finally takes the bowl away and scrapes the remaining blood from the bottom, smearing it in one long stripe from her forehead to her chin.

She stays in the yard until the sun comes up and the blood begins to flake.

.

Meg hears the flutter of wings in the garden just as she finishes marking another day off her homemade calendar, the bright red X signaling the end of week fourteen. One of her father's demons reaches into his pocket for a cell phone, but she shakes her head and walks outside. The cold air rushes up her legs and under the hem of the oversized collared shirt she wears to hide the bump from sight.

"I thought you would display that proudly," he says, eyes zeroing in on her middle.

She shrugs. "Sometimes. What the Hell are you doing here?"

"I find I am curious as to how the child is developing," he admits. "It is a part of me, after all."

She fishes her latest ultrasound from the chest pocket of the shirt and pushes the black and white photo into his hands. "Got that one done a couple of days ago." She rolls her eyes and moves to stand next to him when he squints down at the picture in confusion.

"I don't understand."

"The head's there," she explains, pointing to the photo. "That's an arm, and that might be his little penis or a leg. The guy starting puking and crying at that point, so I'm not really sure."

"You know it is a boy?"

"It_ is_ prophesized," she huffs, trying to take the picture back from him. She and nearly falls onto the flagstones when he jerks it away from her grasp. "The fuck?"

"May I keep it?" he asks, staring back down at the picture. She rolls her eyes again but indulges his request like she'd indulged his curiosity.

"Why not? I'll be getting another one when Azazel makes the next virgin delivery. Besides, I can afford to indulge you before you die."

His eyes glitter dangerously then, and Meg knows that she'd be dead if she didn't have the special child growing in her.

"You will not win," he says slowly. "But I thank you for the picture."

Castiel departs from her backyard without a sound.

.

He visits again during week twenty-three and Meg pounces on him in the yard, her stomach pressing into his as she grabs at his trench coat. "Hey, you can do that flying thing, right?"

He tilts his head and tries to dislodge her hands gently. "Why?"

"I need a chocolate banana milkshake right goddamned _now," _she demands. "We're in the middle of nowhere in the mountains. It would melt before any of the other demons could bring it back. I need it now." Meg shakes him when he refuses to move. "The little Anti-Christ is doing something to me. I keep getting all these cravings like a regular human, and sleeping and I have to pee every twenty goddamn seconds and I really want a milkshake. There's a Dairy Queen in town. Bring me a milkshake."

He blinks and vanishes, reappearing five minutes later with a milkshake as big as her head. She ignores the straw and rips the dome lid from the cup, flinging it into the grass for the other demons to pick up later. Not for the first time she's grateful that everyone wants to make her as comfortable as possible so she can birth the miracle child that will either save or destroy the world.

Castiel watches her gulp down the drink with wide, disgusted eyes. Meg licks the ice cream from her upper lip and sighs, dropping the empty cup between them and resting her hands on her stomach. "That was better than virgin blood."

"Your father has been keeping up with the demonic rituals then?" he asks, kicking the cup aside.

"They're probably a load of bullshit. There's nothing purer about virgin blood. Blood's blood."

"I suppose." He glances at her stomach again. "Do you have another one of those pictures?"

Meg glances at the house and knows that what's she's about to do is a bad idea, maybe even one of the few things she's not allowed, like alcohol or cigarettes or fish, but decides to do it anyway. "Inside. C'mon."

The other demons scatter when he follows her into the house and Castiel ignores them even as she watches his hands twitch with the urge to smite. She tugs him up the stairs to the master bedroom; steps over the discarded clothes scattered on the floor and flung over the baseboard of the bed as she hunts for the black and white photos shoved into the nightstand drawer next to the man's bible and his wedding album. "Here it is. Got it done three weeks ago during my last virgin snack. We're over halfway to the apocalypse now."

Castiel sits down on the bed, squinting at the photo. "He looks bigger."

"I hope so," she says dryly, folding her arms over her stomach. "Otherwise I've gotten really fat." She grunts when she feels the baby kick for the first time, jumping a little at the sensation she hasn't felt in an uncountable number of years.

"Are you alright?" he asks, dropping the picture when she jumps. "Is something wrong?"

"Our future Prince of Hell is kicking," she says. "I forgot how weird this part feels. I don't think I liked it when I was a human and I don't like it now."

Castiel picks the picture up and hesitates, raising his hands toward her stomach but stopping just short of touching her. "May I?"

She raises her eyebrows. "Nothing you haven't touched before, angel, and it is half yours. Go for it."

His face changes as he moves his hands over her stomach, going from confusion to awe as he feels the abomination kick. "Human bodies are truly amazing."

She shrugs. "You get used to it." They stand in silence for a while, Castiel moving his hands over her stomach and Meg staring out the bay window at the hills before the angel suddenly moves away.

"There are things I have to take care of," he says softly. "I should go."

"The outside world moves on. I don't get cable in here, so I don't know what's happening."

"Preparations for what is to come. There are battles starting. The supporters of the apocalypse are beginning to clash with those who oppose it."

Meg shakes her head. "I wish someone would explain this all to me. I haven't got to have any fun in this, and Azazel only tells me what I need to know."

"Having a small role to play is better than none at all. This is a great honor, bearing the child that will be Lucifer's downfall."

"It's written in our book that he will make Lucifer rise," Meg points out. Looking down at the ultrasound again, she stiffens. "Weren't you leaving?"

"I've taken up with a pair of hunters. It is said that they will break the final seal. I have to guide them there. They are calling me now." He clutches the picture. "May I keep this one as well?"

She answers him with steel in her voice. "I don't care."

.

Week twenty five comes with Azazel, Lilith, and a baby.

Lilith hands her the newborn with a smirk on her face before she places both of her hands on Meg's stomach reverently, cooing to the life inside. "Such a pity I won't be here to see him rise," she tells Azazel. The first demon looks back up at Meg, a toothy smile blooming on her face. "Eat up, precious. It's good for the one that's growing."

"The sin will suppress its angel powers," Azazel explains. "If they manifest while he's still in you then you'll probably die, and take him with you. Our little prince's angel half will shred you from the inside out. We wouldn't want that, now would we?"

Meg shakes her head and sinks her teeth into the child's soft belly, blocking out its wailing. Lilith laughs.

.

Castiel flies in later in the day. Her mouth still tastes of human flesh when he appears next to the recliner and stares down at her lying in the sun. "You've eaten recently."

"Yeah," she mumbles.

"You do not require anything? Another milkshake?"

"I don't have another picture of the abomination, either," she snaps, opening one eye to look at him. "What are you doing here?"

"I find myself concerned for both you and the child. I wished to see you."

"Yeah, well, you can fuck right off."

Instead of answering, Castiel reaches under her and scoops her into his arms. "You should not be lying out in the sun right now. It is too hot."

"Fuck you."

"We already did that to make the child, as you have pointed out."

She laughs, turning her body to rest her head against his shoulder. "Look who grew a sense of humor."

"Yes. Sam and Dean have been influencing me." He carries her into the house as if she weighs nothing and deposits her gently on the bed.

"You really wanna do something for me?" Meg asks, propping herself up on her elbows.

"Strangely, yes."

"Fuck me."

Castiel blinks and takes a step back from the bed, eying her warily. "Was that another insult?"

"No, I meant it literally. This body's hormones are all over the place and I'm bored." She raises her eyebrows when he doesn't move. "What? It's not like I can get pregnant again. Let's just make it fun this time instead of a job."

He still hesitates before taking off his coat and climb into the bed with her, moving awkwardly around her swollen belly. "Are you sure?"

She kisses him instead of answering, pulling him down and biting his lip so hard blood fills her mouth. She drinks it down, sweet and pure and so much nicer than the virgin blood her father feeds her. Castiel whines under her assault and runs his hands over her body, popping the buttons on her maternity shirt to stroke her sides and cup her milk-swollen breasts.

It's awkward and slow and nothing like what Meg is used to. Demonic sex is dominance and pain and blood and screaming, not slow and almost loving.

Castiel lies with her for hours after in the bed, his arm draped over her bare stomach and his nose pressed into her hair. "It should have been like that the first time," he mumbles, blowing small tendrils of her hair away from her skin.

A warm feeling spreads through her chest as he clutches her tighter and the baby kicks again, more active with his father near. "Eh, it was okay. More fun than last time, though."

"Do you need anything?" he asks, lightly trailing his fingers over her skin. "Some food?"

"A BLT," she says after a minute. "With a lot of bacon."

Castiel blinks out of the room in just his pants and reappears just as she's buttoning his shirt. Her stomach peeks out from the undone buttons, almost too pale under the florescent lights. "Come back to bed," he orders softly, placing the sandwich on the nightstand. "You should be resting."

The warm feeling spreads through her body again, starting in her stomach. Meg obeys.

.

Castiel returns to her again and again, drawn back to the sprawling house like a moth to a porch light. He brings her sandwiches and milkshakes and news from the outside world. Isolated from everyone but her demons and the father of her child, Meg stares out across the mountains, feet itching with the urge to run and hands twitching with the need to kill.

Castiel settles her with soft touches to her neck and belly. Her son moves more whenever he is around, pummels her skin from the inside and demands attention. "He's responding to my grace," Castiel tells her as she sits in the pool with the water up to her neck. "He knows who his father is. This child is going to be very smart."

He only leaves her when Azazel comes to bring her blood or flesh to eat and examine her growing stomach. She knows the demons in the house tell her father about the angel's visits, but she finds herself unable to care, craving Castiel's touch from the moment he leaves until he returns. When he does she feels calm and content to lie in bed or soak in the white marble tub with him, basking in the light that almost pours from his body.

She tells him about Hell, about how it isn't all torture chambers and lost souls screaming and clawing at one another. She tells him about training Hellhound puppies and learning about Lucifer and angels and her role in the apocalypse. Meg talks about the river of the damned, filled with souls too far gone to even become demons in their suffering, and how her father told her if she so much as touched the water she'd be lost for all eternity. She tells him how it felt to stand on the very edge of one of Hell's most dangerous tortures, toes peeking over the edge so that she might fall and the rush that came with knowing she was so close to an eternal death. He listens without judgment when a note of longing creeps into her voice as she talks about how she'd sat at Azazel's feet like a child and found her God.

Meg listens when he begins to talk about Heaven and Earth. He tells her of the first gray fish that would become mankind and dinosaurs and the great flood and Noah's ark. He tells her stories from the human bible and how they really happened, moving through time as if it doesn't exist and jumping from one century to another without pausing. She listens to his stories of Heaven with a fierce longing, reminding herself that the child in her womb will help Lucifer raise them all to paradise. He talks of Sam and Dean, the two boys who he says will kill Lilith and break the final seal that will free her father.

They tell each other about taking their first vessels. He had wormed his way into a Roman soldier to watch Christ die on the cross and nearly wept when it happened. Meg tells him how her first had been a poor farm girl somewhere in France and how it felt to slip into her body and breathe in the still-familiar smells of wheat and hay and cows. She tells him how it felt the first time she'd been forced to slip back into the limitations of a human body, how the smells had been too sharp and the colors too bright and too real after time in Hell. Castiel says he understands, that beings like them aren't meant to be trapped in flesh when their true forms are sprawling, cosmic, powerful things without limitation.

He tells her of centuries spent doing God's work and preparing for the apocalypse and the special child that his kind says will destroy Lucifer and her kind says will stand as his right hand. Castiel tells her about being chosen to father the child, how his older brothers and sisters had told him that it was his destiny so he could bring paradise to Earth.

Castiel never stops touching her when they're together. His hands are always on her back or neck or tangled with her own when he talks, sliding over her skin like he's afraid she'll disappear.

.

"It's the child, you know," Azazel says casually, handing her a garment bag. She rips it from his hands and hangs it in the closet, irritable and twitching and wanting Castiel. "He's being drawn to both his parents. Instinctively demanding them when he's so vulnerable. The bond will break when you give birth."

Meg looks away and plays with the hem of Castiel's shirt, the dead wife's fine clothes abandoned in the closet in favor of something that smells like the angel. "Meg, you can't wear that for the birth. Try on your gown."

Unashamed of her nakedness, Meg lets Castiel's shirt fall to the floor and unzips the bag. The shimmering red fabric clings to her body and exposes every curve, molding around her stomach to put it on display. Azazel smiles at her like he's a human father seeing his daughter in a prom dress and kisses her forehead, hands resting on the bump. "This will be a glorious day, my child. The red suits your true form."

The color reminds her of the blood she's forced to drink. Her son kicks in displeasure until she slips out of the dress and wraps Castiel's shirt back around her body. Azazel finally sits her down and explains the birthing ritual to her, tells her how she will finally get her chanting and her altar as she brings the future Prince of Hell into the world. "Soon, daughter, everything will be perfect. Your bond to the angel will break and your son will stand at Lucifer's side."

Castiel appears less than a minute after Azazel leaves, taking her hand and staring at the dress thrown on the bed. She picks it up by the thin straps with one hand and hangs it back in the closet, not bothering to zip back up the garment bag. "It's very nice," he comments. "A part of me wishes I could be there to see him born."

She doesn't tell him about Azazel's words, about how their need to be around each other will break and they will be enemies again once she pushes her son from her stolen body. She closes the closet and leans into him, drinking in the peaceful feeling that falls over her whenever he's close. The baby settles with her as if calmed by the light pouring from his father's body and nearly sinking through her skin.

"They're going to break the final seal sooner than we thought," he mumbles into her hair. "Soon. I have to be there with them."

"I won't see you after Lucifer's risen," she says. "This is goodbye."

"Until the apocalypse," he reminds her. "I will try not to smite you, if I can. I would rather it not be me."

_I don't want to kill you, either. _

She succumbs to the baby's desire for her to sleep as she lies in his arms, his hands resting on the bare skin of her stomach.

She wakes to an empty bed and knows Lucifer is rising.

.

Castiel appears again suddenly in her kitchen, his eyes frantic and his clothes torn and bloody. "They didn't do it," he says. "They found a way to keep her down without killing her and to avert it. Azazel's dead. Meg, we lost."

Stiffening, she drops the glass of orange juice she's holding. It shatters against the tile floor and spreads over her bare feet as she grips the counter, not wanting to believe him. "We were wrong, Meg. It would not bring paradise to either side. It would've destroyed all of the humans and all of your kind. It would've taken the child." Stepping over the broken glass, he lifts her in his arms and carries her up to the bedroom. Moving faster than she's ever seen him, Castiel opens the door with his shoulder, drops her on the bed, and begins tearing through the closet. "We're leaving."

"Where?" she asks, still not wanting to believe her father's dead and their prophesized apocalypse has failed.

"Away from here," he answers, throwing a pair of sweatpants on the bed. "Is there anything you want to take?"

"No." Pulling on the sweatpants, she buttons Castiel's shirt over her stomach and reaches for a pair of sneakers next to the bed. "Fuck. I can't see my feet."

Castiel pulls a sweater from the closet and slips the shoes onto her feet, leaving the door open. The red dress for the birth shines mockingly at her from the closet before she looks away, pulling the heavy wool over her head for extra warmth.

"I can't zap or fly or whatever you wanna do. Father said it'll kill the kid," she reminds him when he lifts her from the bed again. "I can't run. I'm too big."

He hesitates and pulls her closer to his chest. "There is a bus station. We could do that."

"An angel and a pregnant demon get on a bus. That sounds like the beginning of a bad joke," she says as he walks her down the stairs. One of her father's demons blocks their path, but Castiel smites him without pausing and walks them out the door.

.

They wind up in a diner in some no-name town, Meg's stomach barely able to fit under the table. She shovels waffles with syrup and butter into her mouth while Castiel sits quietly with a coffee and the waitress smiles at them.

"What're we gonna do with this thing now?" she asks. "They'll kill me if they find me. They'll kill you. They'll kill him."

"He is still the miracle child," Castiel says gently. "There are still those who want to keep him safe. You could go to one of them."

"You said it was all a lie. That means he's not and I got pregnant and went through this bullshit for nothing!" she snaps. "Castiel, we're all going to die. No one is going to help us."

His voice is calm. "We're not. We can hide until everything calms down in Heaven and Hell." He takes her hand and squeezes it gently. "Meg, I will keep you safe."

"Keep _him _safe," she corrects, jerking her hand away. "Azazel told me. It's the abomination. You're attached to it because he's calling you. You'll smite me once he slithers out."

"I won't," he promises. She looks away and watches the snow drift down outside the window.

"When is it?" she asks.

"Sometime in December," he answers. "Meg, believe me. I will keep you safe. Both of you."

She doesn't believe him, but she goes with him anyway.

.

They run, traveling on buses while Castiel leaves a fake trail behind. She does not know where they are headed and she doesn't ask, focusing on staying one step ahead of the angels and demons that are ignoring them for the moment, too busy fighting with each other.

"What're we gonna do with this thing?" she asks again when the baby is late at the end of week forty. "I can't go to a human hospital. They'll know something is up."

"We're going somewhere safe," he explains. "Sam and Dean will help us."

She snorts. "I doubt it. Demon, remember?"

"They're my friends. They'll help."

She snorts again as he helps her off the bus, her dirty sneakers crunching against the gravel in another backwater town. She doubles over and clutches her stomach, squeezing Castiel's hand so hard he yelps in pain. "I don't think so."

"Meg?"

"I thought it was nothing. It's been thousands of years since I've done this," she explains through gritted teeth. "Plus, it didn't hurt that bad. Had way worse down in Hell. We gotta find somewhere to hole up _now."_

"What?" He stares as water soaks her sweatpants. "Did you just wet yourself?"

She glares at him and begins to shuffle away, refusing to let go of his hand. "I can't fucking believe this. This has to be some sort of cosmic fucking joke."

"Meg, I don't understand."

"The little bastard's coming on Christmas, Castiel. Like Jesus. This has to be a fucking joke." He freezes for a moment before he flies into action, scooping her into his arms and walking away from the bus station as fast as he can. She grunts when another contraction rips through her. "Fuck. I forgot how much this hurts."

"We'll find somewhere."

"You better find it now." Grateful that there's no one to see her wandering around with an angel at one o'clock in the morning, Meg closes her eyes and focuses on her breathing.

She opens them when Castiel uses his powers to open the doors to a barn. The animals stare at them and fall silent when they enter and he sets her down gently. "Hell no," she snaps when he brings her blankets meant for the horses and tries to make her comfortable. "Hell no, Castiel. I am not giving birth in a barn on Christmas. It is not happening."

"It was here or the bus station. This is more comfortable and quieter," he snaps, reaching to pull off her sweatpants. Meg bats his hands away.

"I said no." She grits her teeth when another contraction rips through her.

"I don't think we have a choice at this point." Castiel rolls her sweatpants down her legs and hangs them on a hook. "I've never done this before."

"I'll deal with it," she growls, shoving his hands away and settling back against the blankets. "I had five human children. The memories are fuzzy, but they're there. Last resort I'll smoke out and you can take your chances with the bastard and coma-girl. Just get ready to catch when I tell you."

"Don't we need hot water and other blankets?"

"Just take off your shirt," she orders, closing her eyes and trying to breathe. "Once he's out you can heal him and be on your merry way."

He tries to protest but she cuts him off with a scream, clutching her swollen belly. For once he sits quietly and follows the orders she gives through clenched teeth as she breathes fights through the pain, ignoring Castiel's attempts to soothe her. "Can you see his head?" she asks finally, throwing her head back to stare at the ceiling.

"Yes."

"Get ready."

Meg's eyes fill with black as she pushes and grunts and screams, Castiel staring between her legs with a mixture of fear and anticipation written on his face. She stops and slumps back against the blankets when she feels the child slither from her body, its shrill cry rolling through the barn.

"Make sure he's breathing," she orders softly, closing her legs and trying to sit up. She knows she has to pass the afterbirth and prepare to flee, but her body reaches automatically for the child.

"Meg, it's not a he," Castiel says slowly, pressing his fingers to the baby's forehead to clean the blood from it. "It's a girl."

"No, it's a boy," she argues, still holding her arms out. "Azazel said it was a boy. Those stupid nurses he was always bringing said it was a boy. The prophecy said it was a boy."

"The prophecy is wrong," he tells her, still refusing to let go of the bundle wrapped in his shirt. "She has blue eyes."

"They all do when they come out." The next words out of Meg's mouth surprise her. "Give her here."

"One moment." Castiel rests his hands on her stomach and smiles. "There's still some of her power in you, so this should be safe." His eyes glow, making her skin tingle as he heals her, blood and afterbirth and pain vanishing from her stolen body. He passes the baby into her arms. "You should be more comfortable now."

Meg automatically unbuttons her shirt to let the baby nuzzle at her breast in search of milk and laughs when Castiel looks away politely. "Jesus, Castiel."

"That's not an appropriate name," he jokes, settling down next to her. "The connection is still there. I don't want to leave you."

"It's her."

"It's not. I've come to care for you as well." He hesitates again. "What will you name her?"

"I don't care. That wasn't my choice. Lucifer was supposed to name the baby. There was supposed to be a ceremony and chanting and that stupid dress and he would take her and name her and there was another safe house. But that all got cocked up." She hands him the child and stands on shaking legs, reaching for her sweatpants. "You do what you want."

"You're leaving?"

_Yes._ "No."

"You've grown fond of me as well."

_No. _"Maybe."

"Moria," he says, looking down at the newborn.

"Sure. Whatever."

Castiel stands up as she puts on the still-damp sweatpants and takes her hand, pulling her close to his body. "We can fly now."

She stares down at the infant and tries to push away the affection that worms into her brain when the baby's blue eyes lock on hers. "Is it safe?"

"Yes."

.

It's not safe.

The Winchesters and the old man named Bobby Singer try to shoot her the minute they appear. Castiel pulls her out of the way before the bullet can get near her and places Moria in her arms before he stands in front of them protectively. The newborn begins to wail at the noise and Meg automatically unbuttons her shirt and pulls the baby to her breast to quiet her, the human body's instincts guiding her movements.

The Winchesters shout and scream and fling insults at the three of them before Castiel quiets the boys with a clap of thunder and the shadows of his wings. "I will not leave my child to die."

Meg is silent until they reach to take the baby. Her eyes go black and she snarls, pulling Moria to her chest as power runs through the room and cracks appear in the floor. Dean recoils and pulls a knife from his belt, but Sam stares quietly.

"She needs diapers," he says at last. "And real clothes. C'mon, Dean. It's a baby."

.

Moria grows.

The Winchesters come and go, spreading news that the promised miracle child and her demon mother have died, killed by the opposing faction and that there will be no promise of the apocalypse. The baby's hair comes in dark brown and her eyes change color, the newborn blue fading to a perfect match of her mother's. When she's big enough to leave with Bobby for a few hours, Meg leaves the safety of Singer Salvage to hunt down demons and angels with Castiel, eliminating the few who still believe her and the child to still be alive.

It's quiet and calm and a little too human, but it keeps her bloodlust sated enough so she does not kill the Winchesters or Bobby. She resists mothering the child as best she can, reminds herself over and over that she's a demon and demons aren't meant to be mothers.

Castiel shows the girl endless love and affection, singing to her in different languages and showing Moria is wings whenever the girl begins to cry. She takes her first steps toward her father and then turns immediately to walk for Meg, arms out and waiting for her mother to catch her if she falls.

To her own surprise, Meg does. Moria giggles and crawls into her mother's arms.

.

"There's a new king of Hell," Castiel tells her as she washes demon blood from her hair. "He knows that you're alive. He's after you."

"Who is it?"

"Crowley."

Meg snarls when she hears the name of the crossroads demon she'd tortured with Alastair for years in Hell. "How did that asshole get to king of Hell?"

"We think he's the one who killed Azazel," Castiel says slowly. "Lucifer wanted to kill all the demons, Meg, and all the humans. Crowley had a problem with that."

"Lucifer wouldn't have done that," she argues. "He was supposed to save us."

"You were also supposed to give birth to a boy. Many things went wrong."

Meg's eyes snap to black. "I still have faith."

"I suppose that is one thing we have in common."

.

"You know this can't last forever," she tells Castiel when she catches him watching their daughter sleep. "I'm going stir-crazy doing this, and we'll be pulled back in eventually. There's a war out there if Crowley knows."

He nods. "I know." Pulling the first ultrasound from his pocket, Castiel holds it up in the faint light and squints. "It's almost hard to believe she was that small once."

"I'm serious."

"I know," he repeats, tucking the picture away again. "We should get one of all three of us before it happens. We will probably die, but not her. Her powers are growing as she does, so she will be protected. But she should have something to know what her mother and father look like. You act like you do not feel affection for her, but you do."

Meg leaves silently.

.

She steals a camera for him, lets Castiel take as many pictures as he wants and gets Sam to show him how to print them out from the computer. He hangs the collection over Moria's cradle, plasters the walls with images of all of them holding her or standing by themselves. She finds pictures that Bobby took without her knowledge, and the man only grunts and says that he figured Castiel would need them someday.

She stands next to the cradle and gently fingers a picture Bobby took the first week they were there of her dozing on the couch with Moria sound asleep in her arms and finally gives into the human feelings of affection and love that slip into her mind. Castiel wraps his arms around her from behind and rests his chin on her shoulder. "I wish we could see her grow up."

Meg steels her spine and lets him hold her. "They'll find her if we stay."

"I know."

.

Castiel takes thousands of pictures as they ward the house with everything they can and prepare to strike out on their own. Bobby doesn't resist Castiel's request to look after his daughter while they try to stop the coming war.

"Just don't die," he grunts. "I ain't keeping her forever."

Before they leave Castiel shoves Moria into her arms and orders Meg to stand by the window in Bobby's kitchen. She grumbles but balances her miracle child on her hip and poses as he raises the camera and takes the snapshot.

Meg flees for the yard when Moria stares at her with wide, brown eyes and clutches at her sleeves and mumbles "Don't leave, Momma. Love you."

"You could say it to her at least once, even if you don't mean it," Castiel says when he finds her sitting on the hood of a totaled car. "She should hear it from her mother."

"I can't afford it," she snaps, staring into the trees. "It only makes you vulnerable, and you know it."

"I have a gift for you."

"I don't want it."

"Yes, you do." Reaching into his coat, Castiel draws an angel blade into the moonlight. "It will kill anything. Any demon or angel that crosses your path will die if you use this."

"Where'd you get it?"

"A lot of angels died this year," he says dryly. "Most of them by my hand."

She tucks the blade into her jacket and lies back on the hood of the car to look at the stars. "We don't have these in Hell, you know."

"I know."

They sit in silence for a moment before Meg uses her powers to pull him forward. He stumbles when his knees crash into the car's bumper and falls over her. She grabs his arms before he can move away and holds him there. "May as well go out with a bang," she says, pressing down any feelings of affection. "Let's forget for a minute."

It's fast and dirty and violent and everything she'd wanted since the first time Castiel touched her back in that dirty motel room in the middle of nowhere. Bruises bloom on her neck and hips as he presses her back onto the hood of the car. One fist smashes the cracked windshield when she scratches at his shoulders where his wings would be and her teeth break his skin. She gulps down the blood that beads under her teeth and revels in the burning sensation it leaves behind.

His own teeth sink into her neck and he laps at the blood that rushes forward. He buries his head against the wound like he can never get enough of her and whispers his name over and over into her flesh. Meg tears his vessel open with her teeth and nails and does not respond to his soft touches or whispers of affection and tries to distance her feelings from the angel even as he says the words _I love you._

He holds her as his blood dries on her fingers and the sun rises. Meg dresses as silently and automatically as she did the day they conceived the child that was supposed to stand as Lucifer's right hand in the apocalypse. When the pink light of dawn fades from the sky she turns and walks into the trees without speaking to him.

They separate to rejoin the war.

.

She runs and fights and hides and nearly dies under Crowley's demons more times than she can count. The king of Hell stays one step ahead of her each time she searches for him, moving just out of her reach when she catches up or runs. Meg leaves a trail of bodies across the states as she tortures Crowley's minions or slays them with her angel blade, delighting in the blood that coats her skin and the orange glow that flashes across her vision each time.

She runs and hunts alone for two years before Castiel finds her again and flies her halfway across the world without an explanation. "What are you doing?" she screeches when he touches down at Singer Salvage.

"Her powers are growing," he explains. "Bobby can't handle her."

"I can't tote a kid around with me!"

"She needs us, Meg," he says calmly.

Moria runs out the door before Meg can reply and throws herself at her mother and father, nearly climbs up Meg's body as she wails and screams "I didn't mean to!"

"What did you not mean to do?" Castiel asks. Bobby walks out of the house and Moria hides behind Meg's legs.

"She lit a car on fire," he explains. "You two need to fix this."

Meg picks her child up by the back of her cheery overalls and sighs. "Good work, kid. But cars stink when they burn."

"I didn't mean to!" she wails again. Castiel takes the child and pets her hair to soothe her.

"You'll learn," is all he says as he carries her into the house. "We'll teach you."

.

"Momma, don't leave again," Moria pleads when Meg prepares to strike out.

"We can't stay," Meg tries to explain. "There are bad people after us."

"I'll protect you! Stay with me!"

Meg smiles down at her child and pats her on the head. "One day, kid."

Moria's brown eyes fill with tears. "Promise? You and dad will stay?"

"I promise."

.

They watch Moria grow, visiting as much as they can. By the time the girl is ten and growing out of overalls and frilly dresses she can move things with her mind and teleport short distances. The world is her oyster and all she wants is for her parents to stay with her and have a normal life.

Bobby or the boys update Castiel frequently, and whenever they find each other he shares the little stories the boys have told him. She knows that Moria uses her abilities to teleport out of bed and back into the living room when she doesn't feel like sleeping or to get cereal down from the top shelf for her breakfast when she doesn't want to wake up her 'uncle' Bobby.

She hears about Moria begging to be allowed to go to school and get away from Singer Salvage and crying for her parents. She knows that Bobby's friend Jody Mills brings the girl sweets and schoolbooks and toys whenever she stops by to talk to him about something going on in town.

"When are you going to kill that man, mom?" Moria asks when Meg visits on her eleventh birthday and hands her a large, dusty book of demon legends. "I haven't seen dad in months."

"I haven't, either," Meg admits.

"He's alive," Moria tells her. "I can feel him, and you, so I know you're both okay. I just want you here with me."

"I know. But Crowley will kill you if he knows you're alive. I can't stay in one place for too long," she explains for what feels like the hundredth time. "If I kill him, I'll be queen of Hell and everything will be okay.

"Can't you both just stay here with me?" she asks. "Bobby would let you, or we can move and I can go to school and you two can get married and everything will be fine."

"Demons and angels don't do things like that," Meg snaps. "Right now we're just trying not to die. Now, remember what I showed you last time I was here?"

Moria begins to nod when Castiel walks through the door, his coat torn and his angel blade splattered with blood.

"I almost had him, Meg," he says while Moria runs for her father and throws her arms around him, ignoring the blood drying on his front. "He knows about her."

"Where?" she asks, standing up from the table and heading for the door. "Where was he?"

"Kansas."

She walks out the door without saying goodbye to Moria and teleports as soon as she leaves the grounds of the salvage yard.

.

Crowley is the one to find her.

"Tell me, Meg, how did you hide the girl this long?" he asks, walking in a circle around her. She slides her angel blade from her sleeve and grips it so hard her knuckles go white. "I didn't think you would care about the little abomination after Lucifer failed to rise. To think that Azazel's daughter went soft in motherhood is such a shame."

"How'd you do it? How'd you kill him?"

Crowley smirks, his eyes glittering dangerously. "I threw him in the river. Give me the child, Meg, and I won't kill you. You're no threat to me without her, after all. You can run off and screw your pet angel as much as you like."

It's not motherly love or instinct that keeps Meg from turning the child over for her own safety. It's the fact that this child, _her_ child, was supposed to be important to Lucifer and that she was ordered to have her and keep her alive. "Never."

Crowley shrugs. "Have it your way, Meg. I'll find her eventually."

He disappears just as she lunges at him.

.

"Do you have another one of these?" Meg asks when she strolls back into Singer Salvage. She freezes at the doorway to the kitchen and tucks the angel blade away when she sees Moria and Castiel seated at the kitchen table with a chessboard between them.

"Yes," he says, moving his piece across the board.

Moria rolls her eyes. "You can't do that, dad."

"I'm still not clear on this game's rules."

"We have a serious problem here!" Meg growls. "Castiel, the spare blade. Give it to her." She turns to Moria and uses her powers to lift the girl from the chair. "You need to learn to fight."

.

No one protests when Meg takes Moria into the yard and teaches her how to use the angel blade and hand to hand combat and everything she's learned in her long, long life as a demon.

When Moria can no longer lifter her arm or swing her sword, Meg carries her daughter up to bed and tucks her in, gentler with the girl than she's been since she was a baby. "Mom?" she asks, snuggling under the covers. "Can you tell me about Lucifer?"

"What do you want to know?"

Moria hesitates and looks down at her comforter as she nervously touches her hair. "I know I'm this miracle prophecy baby or whatever and that's why these demons are trying to kill us, but I don't know anything about it. Hell, or Heaven, or Lucifer or Azazel or Lilith or anything. Or you and dad. Uncle Sam and uncle Dean won't talk to me about it, uncle Bobby won't talk about it, and dad always changes the subject when I ask."

"They think you're too young."

"I'm eleven years old and I've never left this stupid salvage yard! I need to know!" Moria argues. "Mom, please."

"I don't think you're too young," Meg says gently. She tells her daughter about Hell and becoming a demon and learning about Lucifer. Moria listens with wide, excited eyes, leaning forward and hanging on to every word. "Lucifer was supposed to rise and you were supposed to be his right hand on Earth, the most powerful thing in existence aside from him. That never happened, though."

Questions flow from Moria's mouth like a rushing river. Meg answers all of them as best she can, explaining the different parts of Hell and the legends she grew up with, until her daughter asks her final question. "When did you and dad fall in love?"

Meg swallows. "I don't know."

"But you do? Love him, I mean?" she prods, scooting closer to her mother.

"Go to sleep. We have another day of training tomorrow."

.

They stay and train and hide and fuck like the end of the world is coming.

"We should so something for her," Castiel says one night in June while their daughter sleeps. "One good memory."

"What do you want to do?"

Meg smiles and calls Castiel an idiot when he tells her his plan. In the morning she drags her groggy daughter into the kitchen and tells her they have a surprise. Moria squeals when Meg hands her a purple and orange bikini and tells her to change.

Castiel wraps one arm around Meg's waist, places the other around Moria's shoulders, and takes them to the sea.

The island he drops them on is so small Meg can walk from one end to the other in minutes, but Moria screeches and hugs her father like he's brought them to Heaven. She runs into the waves without fear and calls for her parents to join her, smiling and laughing like the child she is.

"One good day," Castiel says, stripping off his coat and shoes to run into the water fully dressed. Meg follows him, ignoring the burning from the salt as she swims in her underwear.

Moria moves through the waves like she was born there, unafraid of the small swells that pick her up and gently drop her back onto the safety of the sand. She dives down in the crystal-clear water with open eyes and does not feel the burn of the salt or struggle to move. She climbs onto Castiel's back and splashes her mother and floats under the sun like everything is perfect and there is no war waiting for them back in the real world.

For a moment Meg imagines leading her daughter to the river and Hell and placing the girl on her old swing and pushing her over the bank. She wonders if she would scream and cry in horror or if she would laugh and pump her legs, fearless, to fly forward and kiss death on the cheek like her mother did.

Moria laughs and uses her powers to make the waves rise higher and higher, nearly obliterating the tiny topical island, and Meg knows her daughter would not be afraid to fall.

Moria runs onto the little beach and falls into the sand to face the sun. Castiel swims closer to Meg and hauls her out of the water, burying his face against her shoulder. "Thank you."

They stay on the beach until the sun sets, Moria insisting on building sandcastles and a fire and swimming until she is too exhausted to move.

.

After that the real training starts.

Meg decides to push the limits of her daughter's power. Holy water does not make her skin smoke and Moria walks through devil's traps like they're not there, smiling in delight when she can do something her mother cannot. Sam and Dean bring holy oil and trap her in a circle of it in Bobby's yard. Moria walks through the flames without burning and puts them out with a wave of her hand. She slices herself with both her angel blade and the Winchester's demon knife and smiles when no light leaks from her body.

She crosses lines of salt and swings iron pokers as easily as she swings her sword. She cannot fly, but her ability to teleport like Meg can grows stronger and stronger until all it takes is a thought for her to be somewhere else in the salvage yard. She appears on top of old cars and the roof and zaps into every room in the house.

"Catch me!" she shouts, tapping Meg on the shoulder and disappearing. She reappears when her mother doesn't follow and taps her on the shoulder again.

"It's not a game," Meg growls. Moria frowns then turns to her father, tapping his shoulder instead.

"Tag, you're it, dad!" she screeches, turning around and vanishing. Castiel looks confused for a moment and turns to Meg.

"She wants you to chase her."

"Oh."

He follows Moria, the sound of his wings rustling filling the room. Meg strolls into the yard and sees the two of them disappearing and reappearing so fast she can barely follow. Moria laughs as Castiel's face grows more and more serious when he cannot seem to catch her. Eventually he appears in front of Meg and taps her on the forehead.

"I cannot catch her. Tag, you're it." They both stand and stare at her until Meg grumbles and picks herself off the step, her eyes going black as she begins to move.

Meg catches Moria in the front seat of a car missing its engine. "You're it, kid." Moria laughs and reaches for her and Meg blinks again to reappear on the roof.

Bobby and the boys come driving down the road to find Castiel standing in the middle of the yard, eyes darting between Meg perched in a tree and Moria standing on the porch, her eyes sparkling with happiness.

Meg takes one look at the demon tied up in the backseat and knows that Moria's childhood is over.

.

"Mom, I don't want to," Moria whispers, staring at the demon tied to a chair in the middle of a devil's trap.

"You need to be able to do this," Meg tells her, pushing Moria toward the gagged demon.

"I don't want to kill something," she wails. "I don't want to hurt anyone."

"It's just a demon," Meg says gently. "We don't count, really."

Moria nods with tears welling in her eyes as she steps forward. Castiel walks her through the process and steps away, grabbing Meg's hand as their daughter places hers on the demon's forehead.

The demon growls and struggles and screams through the gag as Moria's eyes glow black and the power makes her hair fly around her face. When the demon dies and slumps down in the chair and the glow fades, she turns to look at her parents with wide eyes.

"That was amazing," she breathes, staring down at her hands. "I can do that to _anything?"_

"Yes," Castiel answers, kissing his daughter's forehead. "I'm very proud of you." Moria turns to Meg, expecting the same praise.

"You did good, kid," she says, ruffling her dark hair. "You're a little miracle."

Moria beams and glances back at the body. "Now what do we do with it?"

Meg glances at Castiel and sighs. "I'll get the shovels."

.

That's when the end starts.

Castiel gets word of Crowley and flies into the kitchen where Moria is urging Meg to try some bacon and eggs. "We need to go now," he urges, picking Meg up from her chair. "I'll take us."

"Can I go, too?" Moria asks eagerly, abandoning her cooking. "I'm strong enough now. We can do it together."

"Not just yet," Castiel says. "With any luck you won't have to fight anyone. We'll take care of this and everything will be fine."

"It's my birthday soon," she reminds them. "You'll be back for it, right?"

Castiel smiles. "I promise."

Meg hears his words and shudders instinctively before Castiel flies them away from Singer Salvage and brings her to some warehouse in Ohio. "This is it?" she asks, her angel blade sliding from her sleeve. Castiel nods and releases her hand, staring at the building.

"I wish you would say it, just once. Dean says that words are important to other people."

"We're not people," she points out.

"It would be nice to hear all the same."

"After," she says, striding toward the warehouse door. "It doesn't mean the same thing if you say it when you think you're gonna die."

"I love you, anyway," he tells her. She ignores him and strides through the door.

Meg senses it's a trap the minute she steps through the door and freezes, throwing out her arm to stop Castiel from entering. "We have to go. This is wrong."

"Caught on quick this time," Crowley comments from the other end of the warehouse. She turns to run when more demons fill the entryway and push forward to surround them. "Not quick enough, I'm afraid." Crowley raises an angel blade and smirks. "Time to give up."

Power presses down on her, filling the room with an almost unbearable pressure and blocking her own abilities. Castiel stiffens beside her and growls, unable to fly under the wards that coat the inside of the warehouse.

"Still don't want to say it?" he asks as the demons rush forward.

"We're not going to die here. Not yet," she growls, turning around to press her back into his. "You're going back to that kid."

They fight back to back, stabbing at the demons that rush forward in waves. The room fills with screams and power and glows orange as they kill as much as they can, eventually separating under the waves of Crowley's men that keep coming as they move toward the exit.

Crowley doesn't move, just stands and watches them with his suit pristine despite the demons dying and bleeding all around them. Blood soaks into her hair and face as she loses Castiel in the mob and spins around to defend herself from every angle, the angel blade humming in her hands.

The demons stop and draw back from her suddenly, leaving Meg panting in a ring of bodies, one arm dangling uselessly at her side and her shirt ripped to ribbons. "What, you tired?" she taunts, spinning slowly in a circle with her sword straight out in front of her. "Come on, kids. Let's dance."

"I don't think so, Meg," Crowley drawls. The demons part and she sees Castiel kneeling on the ground, his arms held behind his back by two of Crowley's men. Meg watches him struggle against them, his coat torn beyond use and blood streaking his face while one leg sits under him at an unnatural angle. Crowley smirks at her and puts his blade under Castiel's chin, forcing the angel to look up at him. "I'm going to kill your whore and your abomination of a daughter next."

Pride swells in Meg's chest when Castiel spits a glob of blood and phlegm at Crowley's face. The king frowns and pulls his blade away, and Meg can only watch in horror as he plunges it into Castiel's chest and twists.

Anger and grief rush through her as Castiel's body glows, tearing a scream from her throat causing and her power to explode beyond her control. It shakes the warehouse, forcing the ring of demons around her to the floor as pieces of the ceiling rain down on their heads and Crowley's power breaks.

The last thing Meg sees before she teleports herself away is Castiel laying on the ground, the shadow of his wings burning into the warehouse floor.

.

She lands on the small island they'd taken Moria to and falls to her knees on the sand, screaming in pain. The small trees in the middle of the island catch fire as her power continues to spiral out of control, carving out chunks of sand and whipping the ocean into a fury. The waves rush forward and flow over her, cleaning the blood off her body and burning her skin. She takes the pain and screams until her throat is raw and she cannot make another sound, lets human emotions flow over her as tears streak down her face and the fire blazes on behind her.

She kneels on the sand until all of her emotions are purged from her body, leaving behind nothing but a numb feeling that forces her to stand and face the ocean, angel blade still in hand. She wipes away her grief and anger and calms herself, taking in a deep breath to face the next step of Castiel's death.

Straightening her back, she leaves to tell their daughter.

.

"What happened?" Dean asks when she walks into Bobby's house, ocean water still falling from her body. "Moria wouldn't stop screaming and crying and she keeps saying Castiel is dead. Where is he, Meg?"

Meg's voice is rough when she answers. "She's right. He didn't make it."

She leaves the Winchesters to their grief and climbs the stairs to her daughter's room to find her lying on the bed, staring at nothing. Meg sits on the bed and Moria crawls into her mother's lap like a child, laying her head on Meg's thigh as silent tears fall down her face.

"He promised," she finally chokes. "We were all supposed to be together."

"I know," Meg soothes. "I'm sorry." Silence fills the room as her daughter continues to cry and Meg absently runs her fingers through the girl's dark hair.

"Why'd you name me Moria?" she finally asks.

"I didn't. Castiel picked your name."

"You know, I looked up what all our names meant once, because I was curious. Bobby let me use the computer for something; I don't remember what now. Did you know that Moria means _my teacher is God_?"

"No."

"It's kind of ironic. Your God was supposed to be my teacher, and I got an old drunk and two hunters instead." Moria presses her head harder into Meg's thigh. "Yours means pearl."

"You don't have to keep it," Meg points out. "It's just a name. Azazel told me once that only angels and humans have their names given to them and that demons pick their own. He said we were better than humans."

"You're not."

"I know. But_ you're_ above humans and angels. You'll find what suits you eventually. I did."

Moria pushes away from Meg and sits up on the bed. Her spine straightens and her eyes harden as Meg feels her daughter pull away from her. "I'm going to kill them all," she says softly. "Mom, I'm ready."

"No, you're not. You're still grieving and that will distract you. You need a clear head for this. Emotions only get in the way with things like this."

"What would you know about emotions?" Moria snarls. "You're a demon. You never cared about either of us! You _can't_ care about either of us."

"Be quiet!"

Moria stands, her hands balling into fists. "No! You left me for all those years! You didn't even want me! You left me, and then you left him! Go to Hell, Meg!"

The room shakes as Meg's eyes go black and she jerks her daughter back onto the bed with her mind, forcing her to sit. A fresh wave of grief runs through her. "Don't you ever speak to me like that," she warns in a low voice. "I'm your fucking _mother_. You were safe with Bobby while Castiel and I risked our lives every day to make sure you wouldn't get captured and tortured and killed. I can't even count how many times I've almost died to make sure you survived. Hate me all you want, but don't you ever,_ ever_ speak to me like that again."

Moria's brown eyes glow and Meg finds herself thrown onto the floor with her daughter looming over her. "Get. Out."

Meg laughs. "See, you're not ready."

.

Moria creeps into the kitchen the next morning with fresh tears on her face and pours herself a cup of coffee before sitting across from Meg. "I'm sorry."

"Alright."

"Are we going to kill him now?" she asks. "You need someone to watch your back. With dad dead-" Moria closes her eyes and chokes back more tears. "With dad dead I could do it."

"You don't want to rule Hell," Meg points out. "You want normal."

"What I want doesn't matter," Moria mutters, sounding older than she has any right to. "I was born to do it."

"It's time to put away childhood things," Meg quotes, loosely remembering a passage from the old recluse's bible that she'd read when she was bored and pregnant.

Moria raises her eyebrows. "The bible, mom? Really?"

"Your father was an angel. You pick up on these things," she says dryly.

"Before we leave, can you do one thing for me?" Moria asks, staring down into her coffee.

"What do you want?"

"Tell me about him," she requests. "The stuff I don't know from before I was born. Just one last bit."

Her daughter sounds so much like Castiel when she speaks that Meg cannot deny her. She tells her about Castiel's first visit and all his visits after that when she was pregnant, about the angel bringing her milkshakes and sandwiches and never leaving her side during the last weeks. She finishes with giving birth in a barn in the middle of nowhere on Christmas, the animals around them silent as she pushed her child into the world.

"Thank you," Moria whispers. She finishes her coffee and stands. "Thank you, Meg."

.

Moria collects all of her childhood pictures from the wall and helps Bobby press them into an album, flipping through the pages automatically as she reads the dates on the back and studies herself as a baby being held by all of them. Bobby produces a final snapshot of the three of them he'd taken without her knowing and presses it into the final page. Meg stares down at the picture that shows the three of them sitting at Bobby's table, Moria and Castiel playing chess while Meg lounged against the counter looking out the window.

When all the pictures are safely tucked away, Moria fills a duffle bag with a few changes of clothes, one of Dean's guns, and as much ammunition as she can carry. She shuffles back down the stairs in a pair of jeans and one of Dean's old plaid shirts, her duffle bag dragging on the wood behind her.

"Thank you for everything," she says quietly, hugging all of them in turn. Moria walks out the door without looking back and waits for Meg.

"Take care of her," Bobby orders. Meg nods and teleports into the yard, away from the overwhelming humanity that fills the house.

"Where are we going?" Moria asks flatly.

"Somewhere I really never wanted to see again," Meg answers. She takes her daughter's hand and leaves for the house in the hills.

.

The pool is a swamp and the lawn is overgrown but the house remains untouched except for the bloodstains and rotting bodies that lay on the floor. Moria steps over the corpses without looking at them as Meg leads her farther into the house.

It's like stepping back in time as she walks through the house and kicks away the decaying bodies of her father's demons. She spots broken glass and the sticky, dried residue of orange juice on the kitchen tiles, covered over with rusty stains and remembers Castiel spiriting her away from the house. A package of Oreos lays half open on the counter, crushed cookies decorating the marble.

She stalks past the mess in the kitchen and tugs her daughter up the wooden stairway to the master bedroom, ignores the slippers near the foot of the staircase and the sweater casually thrown over the railing and all the other remnants of simpler times when the apocalypse was coming and Castiel was still an enemy. Meg freezes at the doorway of the master bedroom, not quite willing to step back into her pregnancy, while Moria walks in and drops her duffle bag on the floor, clutching the photo album to her chest.

"You stayed here with dad?"

"Yeah," Meg says quietly, finally stepping into her old bedroom. She brushes the dust off the nightstand and sits on her bed, peers into the open drawer where Moria's ultrasound photos still litter the bottom next to the ancient bible. The red birth dress shines mockingly from the open closet and Moria pulls it out, holding the dress up to her body by the thin straps and turning to the mirror.

"It's so nice here, and secluded," Moria says, moving back and forth in front of the mirror to watch the dress flutter. "Why didn't you stay?"

"Crowley knows this place," she says, watching her daughter admire the dress. "Castiel thought you would be safer with the Winchesters and Bobby, but we don't need to hide anymore."

"So this is home base?"

"Sort of."

Moria strips down and pulls the dress over her head, stepping on her jeans as she twirls. The dress, made for a pregnant woman, bunches around her middle and the straps fall off her shoulders, but she continues to examine herself in the mirror. "Did you ever wear this?"

"Only once," she answers. "It was supposed to be what I wore when you were born. Ritual, or whatever."

"Fertility," Moria says, slipping it off to pull back on her jeans. "Makes sense. What do we do now?"

"We move. I wanted to show you this place you know where to go if we get separated. If something happens and I don't come back here within a day, assume I'm not coming back, that Crowley's got me, and move on. I know you'll be able to tell if I'm dead, but if I don't make it back here, don't come looking for me. Just get out and find another place to hide. Understand?"

"Yes, Meg."

.

They move, tracking Crowley's demons together and sleeping in the woods when Moria needs to. Meg notices that the more she fights and grows and learns the less sleep she needs, traveling for days at a time before she finally collapses.

Moria's head suddenly snaps skyward when they're in the desert in Texas, the body of a demon sprawled on the ground while Meg builds a fire. "Something wrong?" Meg asks, throwing more wood into the blaze.

"Bobby and the boys are in trouble. I can feel it," she whispers, jumping up from the ground. "I have to go."

"Moria, it could be a trap."

"Probably," her daughter answers before vanishing. Meg growls and kicks the body near the fire as she follows.

It's over by the time she reaches the destroyed salvage yard. Cars and trees blaze around her, sending up choking clouds of smoke that sting her eyes and letting off a heat that reminds her of Hell. She stumbles through the smoke as fast as she can and pushes through the door, almost slipping on the blood and gore that stains the rug.

The inside of the house is destroyed almost beyond recognition. Glass from every window sprinkles the floor along with wood from the destroyed cabinets and furniture, every inch of the space coated in blood, torn limbs, and bits of clothing. Meg walks over all of it as the stench of death wraps itself around her and her shoes stick to the floor with the drying blood.

She finds Moria in the shattered living room, coated head to toe in gore, standing in front of the bodies of Bobby and the Winchesters, the only things in the room not covered in the carnage. The smell of sulfur overpowers even the smell of death and Meg knows other demons were here and killed the boys.

Moria turns away as her mother walks in and kneels at Bobby's side, frantically pressing her hands to his head in a vain attempt at resurrection, the only skill she cannot seem to harness. Meg looks for her daughter's angel blade and finds nothing as she walks to the girl and pulls her upright.

"What did you do?" she asks calmly.

"I couldn't control it," Moria whispers, staring down at the bodies. "I saw them dead and I screamed and everything shattered and the demons exploded. I know I should've kept one of them to question but I couldn't stop. _I couldn't stop_."

"Good thing I wasn't here then. Come on, we have to burn them."

"Yeah, a hunter's funeral. I'll do it. Go outside."

Meg watches her daughter lean down and pluck a necklace from Dean's body before she stands again. Moria follows her out to the yard, Dean's amulet swinging from her neck and an empty bag of salt dangling from her fingers. She sets the house ablaze with a wave of her hand and stands next to Meg, unaffected by the smoke and heat from the fire that still rages around the property.

"I killed all the demons that were waiting in the woods, too," she says. "I think all the ones in the state. You were lucky."

"Can you do it again?" Meg asks. "For a bigger area, maybe?"

"Probably." Moria closes her eyes. "But it would kill you, too."

"So do it. As long as Crowley's dead it doesn't matter what happens."

"I can't!" Moria says flatly. "I can't kill you, too. You're all I have left. Maybe I can find some way to separate you from the rest of them so you stay alive. There wouldn't be any demons left in Hell, but you could make new ones. Better ones. _You'd _be the mother of all demons instead of Lilith."

Meg takes her daughter by the hand without answering and brings them back to the house in the hills.

.

"There's one more thing you have to know," Meg says, sitting next to the ruined pool. The only recliner creaks under her weight as she settles into it and remembers better days lying in the sun with her growing child in her belly. "You need to know how to make a demon."

"Alright," Moria says slowly, sitting on the ground at her mother's feet.

Meg stares into the hills and explains the process to her daughter, using herself as an example. She tells her how Azazel had cut into her over and over until she began to lose her humanity and her soul began to change. She talks about the knives and endless days of being drowned in Hell's boiling lakes to punish her for her human sin.

"Do you understand?" Meg asks when she's finished, ending the story with her trip to the river.

"I think so."

Meg nods. "Then let's go inside and get cleaned up before we head out again."

.

They trek through the states, leaving an obvious trail behind them for Crowley to follow. Moria no longer sleeps, instead marching ahead of her mother with a determination that boarders on insanity. Meg follows her into the swamp until they decide to set up camp and wait.

She builds a fire and watches her daughter pull a wrinkled picture from her pocket and smooth it over her knee, staring down at it with a smile. "You took one?"

"Yeah. I just needed a happy memory, you know?" She hands Meg the picture and smiles. "Tenth birthday. You and dad actually showed up, and Bobby let me put up a Christmas tree."

Meg gazes down at the snapshot of the three of them on the couch, Moria sandwiched between her parents and clutching a large book of monster lore from Bobby, a beaming smile on her face.

"You should've left it. We don't need any distractions," Meg scolds.

"I used to dream about it when I was little, you know," she continues, ignoring Meg. "When I was a kid I used to think everything would be okay, and that you and dad would come and stay with me all the time with Bobby and we'd be a normal, happy family. I'd go to school and you guys would help me with my homework and ground me for being out past curfew and there'd be prom pictures and graduation. Normalcy. It was stupid, huh?"

"You were a kid."

Moria tucks the picture away and sighs. "Sometimes I still wish I could be like that. But I know better now."

Meg lights the fire with a wave of her hand and settles on the ground, ignoring the way the mud seeps into her pants. "Crowley will bring a lot of reinforcements with him. That's how he got Castiel. If you need to do that thing again to kill them all and get out of here, you do it."

"It'd kill you, too. I can't control it yet."

"Don't hesitate," Meg orders. "If that happens, I'm just another demon. We don't really count, remember?"

Moria swallows. "I remember."

"I'm serious, Moria. You take him down and forget about me. Understand?"

"I do."

.

She doesn't.

Crowley's demons come in waves just like Meg predicted, thousands of them flowing into the swamp and throwing themselves at the pair. Meg turns and fights and uses the terrain to her advantage while the other demons slip and fall and cannot move with the trees.

It looks like they might win until she hears the baying of the Hellhounds. She fights her way to Moria when the hounds race into the clearing and chase her down, the other demons parting for the beasts.

"Do it!" Meg screeches. "Forget about me, just do it!" Moria ignores her and continues to fight, smiting with one hand and swinging her angel blade with the other. Meg plunges her own blade into the back of a hound when it lands in front of her, feels the black blood splatter against her face as it goes limp. "Moria!"

Her eyes widen when two more hounds jump forward, tackling Meg to the ground and digging their teeth into her arms. Her angel blade falls against the mud out of her reach and she screams, her eyes flooding with black as she tries to throw them off even as more hounds sink their teeth into her legs and begin to drag her downward.

"Mom!" Moria runs forward but Meg can already feel herself being pulled backward and down to Hell.

"Run!" she snarls. "Safe house. _Go."_

Moria nods and vanishes with tears in her eyes as the other demons close in on her, smiling as the Hellhounds drag her down.

.

It ends with a river.

The demons drag her down to Hell and stand around her in a circle, cutting off any means of escape while the hounds stand next to her and guard her.

"The king wants to kill you himself," one of them says. "He'll be here any moment and you'll be lying on the ground like the piece of trash you are."

Meg spits at his feet. "She'll kill you all."

"She's not that powerful. She's nothing but the spawn of an angel's whore."

Snarling, Meg stands up in the circle of demons and looks across the land, smiling when she realizes where they've landed. Her favorite place.

Meg breaks from Crowley's demons and sprints across the barren landscape as fast as she can, ignores the barks of the Hellhounds and shouts coming from behind her and nearly flies over the rocks and dismembered souls left to rot in the artificial sun of Hell. A hound catches her calf and rips a chunk of skin away, but she does not stop even as her injured leg screams in pain and her vessel's blood soaks the ground.

She sees the glow of the river and slows next to the old, dead tree where her swing still sits thousands of years later, stagnant in a place that has no wind. She stops at the riverbank with her toes peeking over the edge and rocks forward, remembers the rush of teetering back and forth over the edge and flirting with a true death. The souls of the damned reach for her with rotten hands and scream in pain as she dips one toe into the water and shivers at the burning cold.

Her father is dead. Castiel is dead. Sam and Dean and even old Bobby Singer are dead and rotting and fueling her daughter's revenge against the red-eyed demon that took her family and is about to take her mother. She knows that Moria will unleash her powers to slay all the demons and build a new race and a new family for herself. She will shed the name her parents gave her and pick one that suits the queen she will become.

They were always told that the mother had to die for the end to come, always assumed that it would be Lilith's death and Lucifer's resurrection that would raise the worthy and the faithful to Heaven. She laughs at the edge of the water like she did when she was young and believed her father's every word and knows that it is _her_ death that will jump-start the true apocalypse and _her_ child that will tear apart the world and rebuild it in her fury.

But she will not let Crowley take her.

When she turns around she sees him smirking at her like he's won. Castiel's angel blade dangles from his hand as he steps forward, knowing no demon is stupid enough to throw themselves into that river to be washed away.

But Meg has never been afraid to fall.

Smiling, she turns and dives into oblivion.


End file.
